Rejoice! Rejoice!
'A masterly mix of shrewd analysis, historical detail and telling quotes... Indispensable’ Mail on Sunday
'Among a host of recent books on the 1980s, Turner's stands out as comfortably the most entertaining’ Sunday Times
When Margaret Thatcher became prime minister in 1979 she promised to bring harmony where once there had been discord. But Britain entered the 1980s bitterly divided over its future. At stake were the souls of the great population boom of the 1960s. Would they buy into the free-market, patriotic agenda of Thatcherism? Or the anti-racist, anti-sexist liberalism of the new left?
From the miners’ strike, the Falklands War and the spectre of AIDS, to Yes Minister, championship snooker and Boy George, Rejoice! Rejoice! steps back in time to relive the decade when the Iron Lady sought to remake Britain. What it discovers is a thoroughly foreign country.
Alwyn W. Turner is the author of Crisis? What Crisis? Britain in the 1970s and Rejoice! Rejoice! Britain in the 1980s, both also published by Aurum. An acclaimed writer on post-war British culture, his other books include The Biba Experience, Halfway to Paradise: The Birth of British Rock and My Generation: The Glory Years of British Rock.